Pope John Paul II

The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency.

To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others.

Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.

Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore... prove ultimately futile.

You are our dearly beloved brothers, and in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.

The United Nations organization has proclaimed 1979 as the Year of the Child. Are the children to receive the arms race from us as a necessary inheritance?

Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, once a distant outpost of the pagan world, has become, through the preaching of the Gospel, a beloved and gifted portion of Christ's vineyard.

The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn.

The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish.

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.

From now on it is only through a conscious choice and through a deliberate policy that humanity can survive.

I hope to have communion with the people, that is the most important thing.

I kiss the soil as if I placed a kiss on the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly mother. I consider it my duty to be with my compatriots in this sublime and difficult moment.

The vow of celibacy is a matter of keeping one's word to Christ and the Church. a duty and a proof of the priest's inner maturity; it is the expression of his personal dignity.

You are priests, not social or political leaders. Let us not be under the illusion that we are serving the Gospel through an exaggerated interest in the wide field of temporal problems.

The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.

There are people and nations, Mother, that I would like to say to you by name. I entrust them to you in silence, I entrust them to you in the way that you know best.

The unworthy successor of Peter who desires to benefit from the immeasurable wealth of Christ feels the great need of your assistance, your prayers, your sacrifice, and he most humbly asks this of you.

Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.

An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.

Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence.

Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.

Young people are threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire.

When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.

Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on whose stage of death and pain only remain standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it.